{"id":2800,"date":"2008-07-01T07:16:23","date_gmt":"2008-07-01T12:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2800"},"modified":"2008-07-01T07:16:23","modified_gmt":"2008-07-01T12:16:23","slug":"60-million-tingly-legs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2800","title":{"rendered":"60 Million Tingly Legs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay Reding on Obamamania<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hardly unusual to see a candidate inspire their partisans\u2014that\u2019s what a good politician does. What is so unusual about Obama is the level of fervor that surrounds him. He is treated like a rock star in a way that even Clinton was not. The Obama campaign is less a traditional campaign that it is a movement<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think it’s worse than Jay lets on.\u00a0 I think that a big part of Obama’s “movement” is verging on a personality cult.\u00a0 The “messiah” references, the unmoderated mass adulation (about nothing so much as him<\/em>, himself), the masses of people mawkishly investing their political hopes and dreams into a personality that has given no rational reason beyond him<\/em>…<\/p>\n

…well, as Jay notes it’s not “about the issues”:<\/p>\n

Political campaigns are, or at least should be, about ideals. The Obama movement is about nothing deeper than some vague vision of \u201cchange\u201d\u2014a value that could mean everything from marching through Poland to changing the national anthem to \u201cKumbaya\u201d and inviting Osama bin Laden to a nationwide love-in. \u201cChange\u201d is an empty slogan, the intellectual equivalent of junk food\u2014filling, but never offering anything of substance.<\/p>\n

And if it were just about \u201cchange\u201d there\u2019s no reason to suspect that Obama would be ahead. Every candidate in this race talked about change. The real force behind the Obama campaign is not mere change, but force of personality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And we know how well those <\/em>work in office.\u00a0 Right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jay Reding on Obamamania: It\u2019s hardly unusual to see a candidate inspire their partisans\u2014that\u2019s what a good politician does. What is so unusual about Obama is the level of fervor that surrounds him. He is treated like a rock star in a way that even Clinton was not. The Obama campaign is less a traditional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08","category-democrats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}